The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Continuing the Portuguese theme, here are some notes on our family trip to the Algarve, Portugal from 19 May to 2 June .....with 2 weeks of excellent weather.
My wife, Inga, and I thought we would try 'self-catering' for once and we stayed at the centrally situated Olympus Vilamoura Suites, less than a minute's walk from the Marina. The apartment for just the two of us was surprisingly spacious, including a private wrap-round corner terrace just 100 feet long ( I paced it !) - we normally get one 8-10 feet wide/long on most holidays. Saga even provided a taxi for the Faro Airport - Vilamoura transfer : either their service is improving or they are desperate.
For birders (accompanied by family members) who, for whatever reason, decide not to hire a car, Vilamoura is the answer to one's dream. There are 3 main birding hotspots in the area - all within c 30 minutes' leisurely walk of our apartment.
1. A Central Park area, about 1 kilometre square, was 10 minutes' walk away. It was always very quiet and peaceful there and I never saw more than 3 or 4 people around - usually holidaymakers crossing it en route from accommodation to the beach. Any daily visit would usually include :

Zitting Cisticola
Red-rumped Swallow
Pallid Swift
Azure- winged Magpie (up to 15)
Crested Lark (readily approachable - unlike the recent twitcherati-traumatised Dunge bird)
Sardinian Warbler
Finches spp
Waxbill - an exotic (up to 10)
with overflying
Purple Heron
White Stork ( 2 pairs nesting near the Park entrance)
Yellow-legged Herring Gull
plus the occasional
Golden Oriole
Great-spotted Woodpecker
Mistle Thrush
Hoopoe
Turtle Dove

2. Falesia Beach Bridge area/Falesia Lagoon - about 20 minutes walk away.
Extensive marshes begin a hundred yards or so from the Western side of the Marina and could be reached within a 10 minutes' walk of our apartment. Falesia Lagoon lived up to its reputation as a hotspot for :

Purple Heron - Usually 3 or 4 sightings per hour
Purple Gallinule
Little Bittern
plus
Grey Heron
Little Tern
Little Grebe
Bee Eater
Cetti's Warbler
Reed Warbler
Great Reed Warbler
Marsh Harrier - 2 pairs
Quail
Serin
Little Egret
together with most of the Central Park's species and
Black-headed Weaver - an attractive exotic.

3. Parque Ambiental
A vast stretch of several square kilometers of marshland, scrub and wooded areas within a 30 minute walk of our apartment. It had been set aside about 10 years ago as an area free from building development and has been largely neglected by the authorities ever since. The entrance to the Parque which I used (from the Oasis Village area) doesn't even have a sign - I went down a track and hit lucky - and the signposted hide ( observatorio ) is unusable as 10 foot high reeds totally block any views! However, the Parque itself is a great birding area and, as one contented birder stated on the web, it could keep one happy for at least a week or so of daily visits.
Additional birds here included :

Nightingale - up to 4 in song
Red-crested Pochard
Jay
Black-winged Stilt
Woodchat Shrike
Cattle Egret
Spotless Starling.

Olympus Vilamora Suites have a large garden with snack-bar, swimming pool, etc. and we spent a lot of time there enjoying the sunshine (plus a few sightseeing trips out by bus) but it was important to know that one could slip away for the occasional walk to one of the local birding hotspots and not be disappointed.
A modest list of about 60 species was recorded for the trip.

Regards,

Freddy

Hi Freddie,
I visited Vilamoura in 1992 when there was a lot of work going on creating Golf Courses - I'm pleased there are still good birding spots there despite the development. (I prefer Fan-tailed Warbler to Zitting Cisticola as it is easier to say and spell!)

Hi Stuart,
They now have 5 or 6 Golf Courses around Vilamoura but the interesting thing is that they are (partly) good news for birdwatchers ....cf your Crossbills, Siskins, etc. on the Market Rasen Course. Admittedly, the golfers don't take any prisoners, but 'early' morning (say, up to 9.00) - before the golfers appear- or late pm visits -after they have gone- often produce a variety of good birds on the greens or lagoons/lagoon edges, especially Purple Gallinule, Purple Heron, Egrets, Shrikes, Black-winged Stilts and Hoopoes. I actually had ALL those species within 30 minutes on one memorable visit to the fringes of the new Victoria Course at 8.30 one morning. Fantastic birding!
I quite agree with you about Zitting Cisticola/Fan-tailed Warbler but, apart from trying to keep up to date, I note that many modern reference books no longer list the bird under "Warbler, Fan-tailed", but only under "Cisticola, Zitting" -a retrograde step, I think. On the other hand, I suppose the bird probably 'zitts' more than it 'tail-fans', although it sometimes does both together in flight.

Regards,

Freddy
PS. Incidentally, I noted in the local golf advertising blurb that re the Victoria Course at Vilamoura the green fees were quoted as :
Mar/Apr - 160 Euros May/Jun - 137 Euros
Phew! c£150 for a round of golf . (Don't tell the wife)

A nice list Freddy
You don't see that lovely little bird called Fan Tailed Warblers very often nowadays. Zitting Cisticolas sounds very exotic but also like something that erupts on your face durind adolesence!!!!

Regards

Hi Chris,
Thanks for your comments. I was pleased with the variety of sightings around Vilamoura, especially as they were achieved just on occasional walks around the area. As and when we return to Vilamoura, so as to explore the region better it would be worth hiring a car occasionally for a few (spaced out) trips to different habitat areas eg. :
The Southern Alentejo (as per Dave and Linda Worrell - May 09) -an amazing area of large rolling plains and cork oakland
Cape St. Vincent - the most westerly point in Portugal
Tavira Saltpans
All 3 sites are within a couple of hours' drive from Vilamoura and should bring any holiday list to over 100 species. A very good guide to the whole area is Jon Hardacre's "Summer Birding on the Central Algarve" (March 2006) with special additional sections on the Alentejo and Cape St. Vincent (also very useful for Spring and early Autumn visits).
Fan-tailed Warbler or Zitting Cisticola?
Some might say that if the text is for attracting general interest, ease of spelling and low blood pressure, then use Fan-tailed Warbler but if it's for scientific and up-to-date interest use Zitting Cisticola.
It is called Zitting Cisticola because especially during the breeding season the male flies quite high up into the air (sometimes making it difficult to locate), often circling its territory and making a repetitive ZIT ZIT ZIT ZIT ZIT call, challenging and hopefully repelling other males. It also uses the repetitive call and flight pattern, presumably as an alarm, when other territory invaders (eg. birders) are around.
Their generic name, 'Cisticola', means inhabitant (-cola) of a woven basket (cista-), referring to the finely woven nest of the Zitting Cisticola, the most widespread species of the genus which contains about 45 species. The name 'Fan-tailed Warbler' is due to their habit of conspicuously fanning their tails (surprise, surprise) and was used when the bird was formerly classified in the Old World warbler family Sylvidae, but it is now considered to be better placed in the separate family Cisticolidae, along with other southern warbler genera. (Here endeth the second lesson.)

Regards,

Freddy

Well done, Freddie - listening to Alex Lees has certainly honed your scientific approach to birding! In future I will refer to this delightful little bird (ringed several in Southern Spain in 2004) as Zittings Cisticola.

Hi Stuart,
Listening to Alex's interesting presentations in Horncastle has certainly focussed the mind on the non-vernacular but one mustn't forget the strong influence exerted on me by those other two notable Lincolnshire birders - Professor Harrison of the Boothby Graffoe-Mavis Enderby Avifaunal Institute in Lincoln and his old friend Jon Freddison of Braceheath Bridge.

Regards,

Freddy